Off to the beach!

This past week has been spent getting ready to go to the beach this coming week. It'll be the first beach trip for the babies and the first beach trip for Drew and I since 2006. Because of all my bedrest and delivering early we never got to go last year. We had two separate beach weeks cancelled last year! We are super excited to be going this year. We hope it isn't a complete disaster with the babies! Thankfully Drew's family will be around to help us out. Wish us luck!

We have had a pretty good week. The babies played last weekend with Mimo while Drew was away. They had fun and I think they wore Mimo out! She did bath night for me twice which was awesome. She also let me go into town and do some shopping which was a nice little break for me!

Tuesday we had Lindy's deaf and hard of hearing teacher at the house. We had Lindy in her bouncy seat and we were on each side of her. One of us would distract her and the other would make a sound. Almost every time she would turn in the direction of the sound. It was very exciting to see! We would reward her by showing her a cool light up toy as soon as she turned. The sounds we did not get much response from were the -s and -sh sounds, which are high frequency sounds. Her hearing loss will make it very hard for her to hear these sounds. Of course we will keep working with her. We introduced three new sounds to her: choo-choo for train, aaahhhh for airplane, and quack-quack for the duck. We do these sounds for her everyday and show her the matching toy.

Friday Lindy had an appointment with the ophthalmologist. He wanted to see how see was doing with her glasses. He made the statement, "She obviously sees. She is lookind around." Yes, she obviously sees! He covered her better eye (the left one) to see how she did with the right one. When he took his hand away he said she immediately switched back to using the left eye. This means she is clearly favoring her good eye. To try and strengthen her right eye we have to start patching the left eye for 2 hours every day. This will force her to use her bad eye. We did it for our two hours yesterday. At first she was not sure at all! She seemed real quiet and subdued. Then she started rubbing it and trying to get it off! After our two hours were up we took the patch off and it was horrible! She hated it and cried very hard. It left a huge red mark on her face. I bought some different patches from Walmart and tried that today. It came off a lot better. I had a wash cloth and kept wetting the bandage and that helped so much. We didn't have any tears this time!

Lindy and her patch.

How she really feels about the patch! I don't blame her. It stinks!Lindy had a few more exciting developmental milestones this week. On Wednesday she rolled completely from her back to stomach. For weeks she has almost rolled all the way over but would not lift her shoulder and head up. This week she went all the way and got her head up. Of course she hates her belly and just rolls right off of it, but hey, she made it there! We are proud of her! She also found her feet this week. For weeks she has been playing with her legs but would stop around her ankles! Finally on Friday she got her hands all the way to her feet. Lindy's two bottom teeth have both broken through her gums! She is still handling teething like a champ!

Crazy Will has been on the move this week. The boy is everywhere and into everything. On Monday he really starting playing with his mouth and sucking on his finger. I am counting this as the beginning of his teething. So far we haven't seen or felt any teeth but he is definitely working on it. He has been a little fussy this week and I think we can blame the teeth. He is army crawling all over the living room now. He loves my flip flops. He makes a beeline for them whenever they are sitting around the living room. He has become very interested in the cat lately. He watches him walk all over the living room and today he army crawled over to him. Will loves to stand up now. He thinks he is so cool when he can stand. Of course he has a tendency to stand on his tippy toes when he does it.

That winds up our week. Hope everyone has a good 4th of July week. The babies will be 11 months old on Monday the 30th. Hard to believe. Next month - a year old. Unbelievable! Happy early anniversary to my parents on July 3rd. 37 years! Wow!

Enjoy all the pictures. I've come to the conclusion that I take WAY too many pictures!

The babies were getting into the beachy mood this week with their Hawaiian outfits! Mimo bought Will a straw hat - how funny! Lindy is wondering what in the world Will is wearing!
He loves the camera! He is seriously starting to smile when I get it out! Miss Lindy found herself wearing a bonnet a few days this week. Not for looks though - for necessity. The battle of keeping the glasses and hearing aides has really picked up in the last couple weeks. Until the beginning of this week, Lindy didn't know she had a right hand. She totally favors everything on her left side. She used to only use her left hand to take out her left hearing aid and take off her glasses. Well Monday Lindy discovered her right hand and discovered she could use it to take out her right hearing aid and rip off her glasses! We are happy she has started using her right arm more, I just wish it was for other things! Yesterday we received two 'pilot caps' I had ordered that Lindy will now start wearing when we are just around the house. The audiologist recommended them to us. They cover her ears so she can't get to her hearing aides. I'm trying to save some bit of my sanity! Pics of the pilot caps next week!
We think he looks so old in this picture! He gets up on his hands and knees and rocks, but he's not crawling yet!
Sweet Lindy! I just loved this little outfit!
Will is too cool when he stands!

One of the many places I found Will this week!

The babies were hard at work with a new toy I brought out.

Videos!

Its been awhile since I've posted any videos, so here are some for your viewing pleasure. The first is of Will showing off his new wounded soldier crawling skills. The second one is of Lindy blowing raspberries. I think she is so funny when she does it! Enjoy!

Drew's First Father's Day

Drew had his first Father's Day and I think he had a nice day. Between church, visiting people in the hospital, and a meeting, it probably wasn't as relaxing as it could have been. We did go out for lunch though. The day before, Saturday morning, Drew's dad came up and went to the Father-Son Breakfast at our church. Young Will also went to his first Father-Son Breakfast. From what I hear he was making friends and influencing people.

The fathers and sons

The babies in bed with their father's day card, waiting for daddy to come see them.
Drew and his sweet baby girl.
Drew and his sweet baby boy.
Lindy's shirt said, "My Dad Rocks" and Will's said, "Cool Like My Daddy."

Lindy went to Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor on Tuesday to check on her vocal cords. Lindy didn't take kindly to having a probe stuck down her nostrils. Because of her crying and squirming it was really hard to get a good look at her vocal cords. From what he could tell, he said the left one is still paralyzed. They still don't do anything at this point, except monitor it. I also had him look in her ears to see if there is anything wrong with her left ear because she will NOT leave her hearing aid alone on that side. He said everything looks fine, she is apparently just annoyed with it!

Wednesday Lindy had occupational therapy. The OT said she is doing well and to continue working on sitting and tummy time. I did not get the full scoop because I wasn't actually at home for the appointment.

I went to the March of Dimes lunch where they recognized the top teams and money walkers. We had one other family team raise more money than we did and one other person raised more money than I did. Now we have something to strive for next year!!!

Of course we went swimming again this week. Mommy was having fun playing with Lindy's crazy long hair in the front of her head!

This is how we found Will one morning in his crib. He was in the very bottom corner of his crib. Must have been cozy!

This week we had a few play dates with friends and their babies. Tuesday evening our friends Will, Amy, and their kids Grayson, Davis, and Anna came out for dinner. I missed any picture opportunities because our babies went to bed pretty soon after they got here. We will miss them when they move next week.

Wednesday night we went and spent the night with our friends Jon, Lindsay, and their boys Austin and Jackson. Drew and Jon left Thursday morning for a bachelor party so the girls and babies hung out all day. Austin is 8 months old, so not too much ahead of the babies adjusted age. We had a lot fun playing with them. Except for Will's refusal to go to bed Wednesday night, it was a good trip. At 11pm that night he was rolling around the bed having a grand old time. Mommy and Daddy were not pleased. I finally broke him down and got him to sleep!

Jackson and Will - matching outfits and matching blue eyes!

Austin, Jackson, Lindy, and Will - new friends
This might be the second time I have ever gotten them both to smile in a picture! I was so excited! It takes a good bit of work on my part to make them both smile, but I did it today!

Everyone have a good weekend. We are going to be playing with Mimo while Drew is away!

We love summertime!!

We blew up the pool, filled it with water, and the babies went swimming! It was great to be outside, getting some fresh air. We got these really cool floats from Target and they work so well. Will just laid back and enjoyed himself both days we were out there. The first day Lindy was checking things out but the second day she laid back and relaxed too. It is nice to have something new to take up some time in the day.

Tuesday morning we had Chris, from the DHHP (deaf and hard of hearing program) come work with Lindy. We have started introducing sounds to her, like meow, woof-woof, and neigh. She does seem to hear them when we do them.

Friday I took Lindy to the audiologist and we tried to put her in the booth. This is where they feed sounds into her ears and she is supposed to turn and see a light-up dog. It didn't go that well. She is not ready yet. I personally feel that her vision is an issue. The dog is 3 feet away so who knows how well she sees it. There were times where it looked like she turned, but we couldn't be positive. We are going to try again in about 6 weeks.

The biggest news of the week is that it looks like Lindy might be cutting some teeth! You can tell on her lower gums that something is happening. She has acted fine though. I was just looking around in her mouth and saw them and was shocked. Haven't felt or seen anything yet for Will. I'm glad Lindy might get to reach one milestone first!

Not a lot has happened this week for old Willy boy. He is getting very close to crawling. He has finally gotten up on his knees a little bit the last couple days and rocked a little bit. It won't be long before we will be chasing him. What fun! He got to go to the Father-Son breakfast this morning with Drew and Grandbob. I think he probably enjoyed his time out with the men!

Here are more pictures from the week!

Learning to sit and share!

Is this not too funny? She can make the most pitiful faces, for no good reason!

I loved Lindy's new bracelet. She gives new meaning to wearing lots of bangles!

Old Will has recently started trying to escape his bouncy chair. This particular day he managed to twist himself around. He is seriously programmed to be on his belly.

What a sweet girl!
You'll never imagine this, but another picture of the smiley Will! He smiles ALL the time!
Just a couple of cute nuggets!

The Circle of Life

I'm just getting to my weekly post because we were out of town at the end of the week. More on that in a minute.

I am the proud aunt of another baby girl, Rylee Jean, born on Friday June 6 at 11:39am to my sister Amy. She weighed 7 pounds 15 ounces and was 20 inches long. She was born at 37 weeks and is doing well. She apparently looks exactly like her big sister, Hayley, and in fact weighed the exact same and was 1/4 of an inch longer. Congrats Amy, Lee, and Hayley! We look forward to meeting the newest family member this summer!

Approximately 15 hours later, my grandfather passed away. Hence, the title of my post, the circle of life. He lived in Maryville, MO and passed away after a short illness. Three weeks ago he was a young 91 year old tooling around town and hanging out with his friends at the coffee shop and my grandmother at the nursing home. He was the best grandfather ever. He was one of the kindest, funniest, wittiest people I ever met. We have a trip planned to MO at the end of July and Lindy and Will were going to finally get to meet their great-grandparents. I am so saddened that I had not seen him in a long time and that he did not get to meet my babies. I do wonder if he has met my other baby, Adam, though. Although my grandfather went by David, he was William David. I would have given anything to have had a picture of the two Williams together. He will be greatly missed. Because of some family circumstances, we will be having a service in July when everyone had already planned to be there.

The beginning of last week was better than the end. Monday Lindy had occupational therapy. The therapist was pleased with her recent developments (rolling, reaching for toys, etc.) We are to work more on sitting and tummy time in the coming weeks. Tuesday we had the DHHP (deaf and hard of hearing program) work with us and Lindy. We have homework for the week! Just little things to help Lindy become aware of sound. When we hear a noise we are to put our finger to our ear and say, "I hear." Then we are to show Lindy the sound. We are to put ringing phones next to her and tell people to knock on the door again so we can show her where the sound is coming from. Nothing too hard, just something we have to remind ourselves to do!

Wednesday morning we went and got Lindy's new ear molds and her very own pink hearing aides! After what seems like waiting forever for insurance issues, she finally got her own hearing aides. She pulls them out just like the other ones so she doesn't seem phased by the transition. We are positive she is hearing us. We are making all kinds of noises to her and she is smiling at us. It's a different smile then when you are tickling or kissing her. It's the sweetest thing ever!

Wednesday afternoon we left on our 1st vacation! Drew has a yearly ministers' meeting, Annual Conference, at Lake Junaluska, NC, up in the mountains. Well, he goes for work, I go for the vacation! The kids did great on the ride up there, about a 3.5 hour drive. One would think that it would be nice and cool up in the mountains, and apparently it usually is, but not this week! It turned out HOT. And the place we were staying, didn't have air conditioning!! We love where we stay, with some friends at her parents' house, but it did get interesting being so hot with little babies! We ended up stripping them down to diapers many times. Drew attended his meetings and we played at the house. We did get to eat out and drive around the area a bit. We went to K-Mart in search of air conditioning one time! The weekend was a little bit overshadowed by the grim news of my grandfather's health. We left late Saturday morning and had a long ride home. We ate lunch in Black Mountain and had to stop and feed and change babies. It's always good to get back home and into our own beds.

Today I have set up our blow-up pool and have water in it warming up. We are having a heat wave and it is hot. Today got to 99º. The kids will be going swimming this week! Of course there will be pics next week!

And what you all really came for, the pictures of our week.

The rolling master of the house. He started over on the blanket on the right side of the picture and this is where he ended up. Yes, he rolls around objects and even turns corners! Super Will!

A sweet Lindy outfit!

In Lake Junaluska, at the mountain house. This is one of our favorite restaurants in the area. The babies enjoyed their first trip to this fine eating establishment for some BBQ.

We braved the heat Friday afternoon and took the babies for a little walk down by the lake. We saw some of Drew's pastor friends and got to see the pretty lake. The babies did great in the stroller. Our little family at the beautiful Lake Junaluska.


This is how the babies hung out quite a bit! Look at those bellies!
The mountain house has an awesome front porch and swing. Last year when I was pregnant I sat on this swing for almost the entire trip and read and relaxed. What a difference a year makes! Our friends Katie, Kris, and little Micah. Katie's parents own the house where we stay.
Will was getting a bit antsy in his car seat. This is when we stopped to feed them in Hickory. He didn't want to get back in!
And lastly, a sweet Lindy smile.